The headliner from the Nebraska Board of Regents meeting
Friday morning will be the Huskers’ continued partnership with Adidas, after
the Board approved a new 11-year, $128 million-dollar contract extension, but
the Board also discussed something else noteworthy: Friday night games.
According to Shawn Eichorst, Nebraska’s athletic director,
Memorial Stadium will be opened up and made available to high schools on Friday nights “as needed.”
Nebraska also announced that it does not expect to host any Friday night Big Ten games in the future,
despite an effort from the conference to turn Friday into a day for Big Ten
football.
“We’ve been looking at the logistics of this and what it
would take to host a Friday night game. It’s very difficult for us to conceive
doing that on our campus,” Nebraska Chancellor Ronnie Green said. “We have been
talking with the conference and it’s our expectation that we will not play any
home football games on Friday night here in Lincoln.”
The Huskers are also not expected to participate in any more
Friday night games moving forward. Nebraska plays a Friday night game on the
road this season against Illinois on Sep. 29, but it appears that will be it.
“We’re presuming we wouldn’t have another one during that
(six-year) window of time,” Green said. “We’re working with the conference with that
expectation.”
Nebraska head coach Mike Riley expressed his disdain for
Friday night games at Big Ten Media Days last month, saying “I like Saturdays
for college football.”
Derek is a newbie on the Hail Varsity staff covering Husker athletics. In college, he was best known as ‘that guy from Twitter.’ He has covered a Sugar Bowl, a tennis national championship and almost everything in between (except an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game… *tears*). In his spare time, he can be found arguing with literally anyone about sports.
